Year to date, occupancy is up 11.4 percent over 2012, according to Sonoma County Tourism. Visit California, the state's official tourism booster, also found that visitor-generated taxes equaled $168 per household in Sonoma County, while tourism-related employment accounted for nearly 17,000 jobs in Sonoma County.

The 20,000 square foot space was redesigned to increase capacity by 30 percent, allowing for a more stream-lined inventory management system and greater stock volume, especially during the busy months of harvest.

It allows visitors to the www.visitnapavalley.com website to search for thousands of upcoming tours, tastings and specials events that can be reserved exclusively through the CellarPass guest reservations and marketing platform.

"With these latest honors, we have now won 24 gold, silver and bronze medals over a five-year period from the Flexographic Technical Association, and I'm very proud of our team that earned us this recognition," said John Trail, president of Labeltronix.

Despite concerns that people could be over-served at farmers markets, the House Regulatory Reform committee voted 12-0 today to pass a bill that would allow for wine tastings and sales at farmers markets.

There were fewer than 50 Canadian wines entered in this year's competition. I believe that the CMB would be a great opportunity for Canadian wine producers to increase the level of awareness internationally of the evolution and quality of the wines we are growing.

The Legislature passed a bill Monday that includes a provision that directs the city of St. Paul to issue and on-sale wine and malt liquor license to the Capitol cafeteria. The bill now goes to Gov. Mark Dayton.

The Winery Exchange has released a range of 5.5% abv wine-based RTDs into the off-trade. The range is called The Pomus and peach, grapefruit, watermelon and pomegranate flavour variants come in 25cl and 75cl bottles.